


and the gentleness that comes

by XeauxGhough



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Jötunn Loki, M/M, Mortal Loki, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Life-Saving, Pseudo-Incest, Slow Burn, Trust Issues, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2018-08-10 12:12:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7844446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XeauxGhough/pseuds/XeauxGhough
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the battle of New York, Loki was banished to Midgard as punishment. For four years Thor has been hunting him, and Loki has managed to evade him at every turn- until now. What’s left of his magic is rapidly diminishing, and his new-found mortality is making itself painfully apparent. Evading Heimdall’s gaze takes every bit of energy he has left, so much so that Loki doesn’t dare waste his magic on finding food or securing shelter. Because he knows that if Heimdall gets so much as a glimpse at him, Thor will find him. What Thor would do exactly, Loki didn’t know. But whether his false brother would bear revenge of his own or not, Loki trusted that he wouldn't live to experience Thor's reckoning.</p><p>Dying hadn’t been part of the plan, but it was quickly becoming the better option.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ***Please note that tags are subject to change and will be doing so shortly. However, you will always be warned beforehand in individual Chapter Notes. Thank You***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** Chapter updated 9/14/17. This story is officially un-dead, or at least for the next three chapters it is. Thanks for everyone who kept commenting/leaving kudos even though I went MIA. I saw them and it meant a lot!

The world heaved rain.

It had been for a week now, with no sign of an end. Winter was thawing at its edges, the snow was gone, but the rain still threatened to turn to sleet. The air was cold and wet, and a heavy fog hung low between the buildings. He could see it when the lights hit it right; drifting in red and green currents, leaving ice clinging to the glass and brick and stone. He felt the chill of it on his skin, felt it crawl into him and freeze along the bone. Felt it burning holes in his lungs, making his chest tight and every breath painful, shallow.

He was drenched completely through. The shivering was bone deep and jarring, and it wasn’t stopping. His hair clung against the back of his neck and sullen cheeks; uncut and tangled with mud and worse. Rain funneled down the ropes of his hair and into the back of his frayed, cloth jacket. It poured into the seat of his two-sizes-too-large jeans, equally tattered and held on his hips with some strips of cable. His shoes were drowned, falling apart like they were paper, not leather and rope. The sopping material of his clothes pressed down hard on his bruised ribs. Exhaustion was settling in his chest, sharp and heavy. The weight of it made it impossible to breathe. Every other half-minute there was a sickening lurch of panic that shot through his body; his lungs unable to get air in past the pressure. The world blurred in pulses, spun. His heart shivered instead of beating.

Blood was pooling in his arms and legs. He could feel the frantic rush of it; the terror as it circled around the shriveled veins of his fingers and toes, unable to make it back up. His arms hung at his sides. His legs twisted together, limp. His fingers tingled in pins and needles, starting to burn in places, worse than the burn of the dirt crusted into the cuts on his face, and back, and thighs. Worse than the blinding pain in his skull, or the pounding in his ears, or the pull of bile in the back of his throat.

There were stairs to his far right; a gate to the subway. Construction overhung it; metal scaffolding and tarps tearing in the wind, shielding the exit from the worst of the storm. People constantly spilled up onto the sidewalks around him. Coats, umbrellas, suitcases, all weaving through the piles of trash and street signs crowding the narrow streets. They trudged through the water gurgling up from the drains and sewer pipes. They walked past him, eyes forward, careful not to see him in the shadows.

The scaffolding didn’t come far enough to cover him, and he didn’t move for it. He lied still, thrown into a recess of the building behind him, nothing but open sky and rain and city above. Cars waded past in oily green-gray rivers that had once been black-tar streets. They sped, sending waves cresting against his legs. People shouted at the cars, at each other, into the rain. Horns echoed between the buildings and cracks of thunder. Lightning flashed behind the pale light of the city. The rain came down harder. He slouched against the brick behind him, it rough on his back.

He shivered violently as the wind ripped through again, sending sharp spurts of icy rain into the side of his face and down the back of his neck. His teeth were chattering against each other, he had bitten his tongue twice. He swallowed hard, coughed, spat.

His throat was raw. He tasted iron.

The cold of the brick propping him up seeped through his jacket. The chill burned his skin, but it at least grounded him a little and kept the world from tilting too far to one side. Thin, yellow light flickered down on him from the streetlamp. It projected his hunched figure onto the aggravated surface of the water beside him. There was a darkened window behind his back, the ledge of the wall just below his neck. In the corner of his eye he could see them both; the flickering shadow and his dark reflection in the glass. He avoided looking. He could feel his twisted ankle, and the swelling in his shoulder and the gashes on his face and ribs. His hair and clothes were matted with days of filth and blood even the constant rain couldn’t wash out. He could feel the concavity of his stomach, the sick thinness of his face, and his limbs stripped of fat and muscle. He didn’t need to see it.

More people passed him, surging up from underground stations. Their eyes flashed by him, their green-gray faces unfamiliar and uncaring.

He wouldn’t care either.

Didn’t. Hadn’t.

It was poetic, if anything—as if they knew who he was, or what he was. That he deserved this.

There were shops on the street corners; bakers and butchers, little restaurants, some of which were still open this late in the night. He could hear people talking, and laughing. Colored lights blurred around table umbrellas and shop windows and winter coats. He could smell meats and cheeses and hot bread, the sweep sharp smell of wines and cakes.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but the smells made him sick.

His body was dying, then. Fine. Let it.

He didn’t have the drive in him anymore. There was no purpose. All there was, was hatred, and some desperate, animal need to survive. Soon that would leave him too. It would stop when the shivering did.

He had been lying there for a while, face low, but his eyes steady on that tower streets away, rising up to disappear into the sunken fog and rain. He hated it. He had hated nothing more in his entire life, he was sure of it. How many plans had he had in the beginning, of finding his way back into that wretched place and burning it down? He had had dreams; of becoming the darkness around each of them as they slept in their beds, then of suddenly becoming something terrible, tangible, and making them choke on their pure fear of him. He had wanted to use their mangled bodies as tinder. In these dreams, he destroyed everything with great, flaming pillars of green until nothing remained except their black-charred bones. They would scream for him to stop, and he wouldn’t listen. He would laugh, and they would suffer. All of them. And he would write Thor’s name into it, after it was done. He would spell it out in ashes.

But after all this time that tower still stood; indifferent to him. It remained to burn marks into his eyes like sun-spots. It didn’t matter if he looked away or if he closed his eyes, it would be in his every glance; red-tinged and torrid.

Revenge against the Avengers was not something he could reach now. He was dying. This was his slow and painful end, as promised— what the steady work four years had done. And wasn’t it all so… final.

He had thought he’d be able to laugh at this moment, when it finally came. When the high of desperation shattered him into unthinkable things, and the world showed him his insignificance. Again.

But he couldn’t now. That manic surge of rage wasn’t coming this time. He didn’t have the energy left, or the magic. There was no worth in the debilitating pain he drowned in now. There was only this numbness inside of him, spreading. He didn’t want to fight. He wanted to sleep. The thought of anything else was paralytic.

He leaned back further, to try and ease the pressure off his spine. Pain lanced up his shoulder into his neck.

He only needed his breath, and then he would leave. He’d go back to that sunken hole of his and sleep for years. He shouldn’t have left it that morning in the first place, but he had woken to pain in his head and a deep weakness in his bones. He knew the signs of starving. Hel, he knew what it felt like. When he had sought out death in the void, he had suffered it repeatedly, his magic healing him and keeping him in infinite torture for the entertainment of others. But now there was no magic. Now starving scared him. And that morning hunger had scared him to his feet after days of laying low.

He knew how to steal fresh food, and where to steal it from, but it was something you needed to be quick and patient for. His hands hadn’t stop trembling for days, and he hadn’t had the energy to wait for hours until the vendors turned their backs. It had been the bins, then. Stealing from the alleys was safer, and it was incredible how starving depleted ones’ dignity. It hadn’t mattered then what was food and what was trash. He didn’t think about how his mouth watered at anything less than rotting, or how easy it was to ignore the rats scampering over his hands while he searched for it.

He hadn’t seen them coming. Hadn’t known them. They had been strangers, drunk and looking to chase anything that ran.

Half-way into the bins and then there were shadows casting over him. Two men came from the street, looking directly at him.

And he ran.

They chased him down the alley, further back between the buildings, away from anyone who might see. He felt the jarring moment his legs gave out, when the gravel tore through his jeans, and ripped back the flesh of his palms and chin.

His eyes focused enough to see the shoes at his face, and a hand reaching for an abandoned, rusted pipe leaning against the bricks. He scrambled to get his legs beneath him, but the world was turning under his hands.

The metal rung out when it struck his temple, and his back and ribs.

When he felt the bones of his ankle shatter under a boot, wild green fire suddenly ripped itself out from his palms and encircled him. The men stumbled away and ran, leaving him with his burns and other injuries bleeding out onto the gravel. He could see red swirling around in the water, disappearing down through the bars of the drain near his head.

He had easily known worse pain before. He had laughed in the face of worse pain before, brushed it off as nothing and continued on. For years under Thanos, pain had come to mean existing. Torture was breathing. The beating of his heart. And he survived it.

They hadn’t even been creative about hurting him; sticking to blunt, fast pain. Unimaginative and random blows; meant to hurt him, not necessarily break him. Not even to kill him. It was just quick violence, easy power, fun _._

They had been nothing in comparison to what he had been through in his life. _Nothing._

And yet, left shivering and alone in the mud and sewage and rain, something shattered. The humiliation was agony; that this could be done to him, here. Frustration built up inside of him until it burst out in angry sobs. His chest welled with a sick mixture of devastation, hopelessness, pure hate. He was furious, and so, so exhausted, and all his life had led to this one moment. And it was all his life would ever lead him to.

He choked as that thought welled in his throat.

He bit harder at his bleeding lip to stop the terrible sobs ripping through his chest.

He wanted to die. He laid still for hours, and imagined starving there in the mud, or those men coming back to finish him. He imagined the waterline in those pools rising higher and drowning him; he unable to move his neck the inch to do it himself. For hours, he watched his purpling fingers shake in the brown water in front of his face until he couldn’t feel them anymore. The water trickled down the drains, the sound echoing up from the pipes. Far away there were sirens, and people walking, close enough that if he yelled they would hear him.

His skull pounded. His ears hadn’t stopped ringing. There was a swelling pressure behind his eyes. He closed them, to keep his brain from spilling out into the water with the blood oozing from his temple and cheek.

Time passed. The sky grayed. Those pools never rose any higher.

The ground became increasingly uncomfortable underneath him. The dirt and cement scratched at his face and chest and knees, his spine and shoulders became stiff and started to ache. Eventually all he could think about was shifting, just enough to relieve the pressure on his joints. He wanted to scream. He was supposed to be dying. His shoulder was lying next to him, still held in the skin but ripped from the socket. Every one of his ribs was either bruised or broken, and he was fairly certain his ankle was no longer connected by all its tendons. But damn it all to _Hel_ if the ground wasn’t _comfortable_ enough.

A strange, detached acceptance quickly washed over him then. His rage sizzled out under abrupt calm. He couldn’t do anything about it. He was hurting, lost, cold. He could get up and leave, and that was it. Find the streets and leave.

He got up to his one shaking hand and his knees, then just his knees, his feet— _foot_. He tested each muscle and adjusted as he went, assessing the damage. His left shoulder was useless. His ankle too. He leaned his weight onto his better leg. He wiped the blood from his eye, picked the gravel out of his lip and chin. His hair at his temple was slick with blood. Everything hurt, especially breathing. His chest flared with pain on the right side, and every breath rattled out of him.

The amusing thing, however— if there was a single amusing thing to find in this— was that he was no longer hungry. There was new pain to fill his empty stomach, and nausea had swelled with the trauma to his skull. He would laugh, if he could get enough air.

He stumbled forward, his shoulder smashing into the bricked wall to his right. He let the building support his weight as he shook. The pounding in his head was blinding, and only getting worse. He wiped fresh blood from his eye and began limping his way forward, one hand scraping along the brick, the other remaining limp at his side; twisted in a way that he wasn’t sure would heal. He continued forward slowly, empty, back the way he had come.

He hadn’t gotten far, though. And after a few blocks he collapsed and crawled to the nook in the bricks where he laid now.

His hide was close, three blocks east. It would be drier, warmer; out of the wind and rain. But just thinking of getting up had him sinking further into a lingering apathy. Did it matter, if he made it back? The dizziness was only worsening. Perhaps he was bleeding out after all.

He gazed up to that tower again. He could just make out the glowing blue ‘A’ through the thinning rain, miles away.

Four years had passed since the battle of New York, since he had lost, taken away in cuffs back to Asgard.

He hadn’t seen Thor since then. The moment they had both landed back on the bridge, Thor had handed him off to the guards waiting for him, nothing but apathetic silence and procedure like he was some sort of common criminal. He had watched Thor’s back disappear across the shattered Bifrost, Tesseract in tow, without a single glance or word spared back to him.

The cuffs had soon turned to chains, the Bifrost into a cell. And after months alone, without visitors and with no solace other than his own thoughts, they had finally dragged him out to the great hall of the All-Father.

It was his trial day, apparently. They hadn’t told him when herding him away from the cells, but he had suspected anyway. And had he an impressive list of crimes indeed. Each one was spoken out for the crowd, so that they might be reminded. As if they didn’t keep lists of their own personal slights against him. He stood unaffected, between four guards at the throne of the All-Father. Odin stared him down as the deeds were listed. He had stared back.

When the formalities were finished, the court quieted, and all eyes turned to him and Odin. Every pale and pallid face in the hall looked at him with the usual judgement and contempt, only now vindicated. Except, perhaps, one. He had felt his mother there, off to the side of him as the proceedings went. A palpable misery was emanating from her, and he had kept his eyes purposely forwards from the beginning, out of fear. Execution was on the tongue of every Aesir present in that great hall, and surely had been for some time. He could hear it in the smug silence of the crowd. He could hear it in the tone of the All-Father himself as he began to comment on the accusations. He was not sure what he would see in his mother’s eyes if he looked. He couldn’t risk it.

Thor, however, had been distinctly absent. There was a glaring emptiness where he should have been; standing just to the right of the king. Thor had often done that, though. Trials had always bored him in the past, and if he could manage to, Thor would run off to hunt with Sif and Hogun instead of attending his duties. Except, he caught Sif’s cold eyes in the crowd to his right. Then Hogun, a way behind her. There was no Thor. He had thought that he would be there, though. If not for him, then for their mother. Then again, he hadn’t visited him once in his cell, and their last exchange had been months ago, back on Midgard. Perhaps Thor had truly come to hate him, that even being in the same room with him would cause his heart to boil in his blood.

The thought should have felt more victorious than it did. Ice twisted from his chest, upwards, and tightly around his throat.

The speech finished. The silence dragged on, waiting for some reaction from him, some pressing apology, plea, confession, something. He had laughed instead, it caught in his chest and sounded forced even to him, but he continued. He told Odin to take his time deciding, the tired sarcasm evident in his tone. Everyone knew the verdict already, there was no point to dragging things out. The All-Father would sentence death. He had known that stepping out of his cage that morning, he had known it when the chains sealed around his wrists, and had known it when he had walked towards the throne. He had given Odin every possible excuse to get rid of his burden of a false son. He would not give up the opportunity. And the decrepit king would come out the victim, as intended. Poor Odin, for having to father a Jötunn bastard. Poor Odin, for having to house such an ungrateful monster. Could it even feel guilt? It was a mercy, really, to put the thing out of its misery.

Odin spoke, and had the audacity to ask him for recognition of his crimes— he had lived them, relived them every night in his dreams where the blood and pain was fresh again. He mocked him, unwilling to play the game so that he might just get on with it. Odin’s gaze went heavy, and that pulled at something small inside of him. This man had raised him, had conditioned him with lies as well as Thanos had with pain. The right word or look still made him flinch. But he was not controlled by this clouded-eyed, decaying relic of a man anymore. And he never would be again. He would die free, if that was the only way he was to be allowed freedom. His body and his mind would be his own.

When Odin spoke next, he spoke to him directly. His gaze held him still in his chains, and for the life of him he would not look away. It would be the last time he heard his father speak, and he would watch him speak the words that kill him. Time crept in between Odin’s inhale and the final ruling. In those brief seconds his resolve suddenly shattered, and he desperately glanced to his mother. She was looking at him, only at him, with all the tears Asgard would ever allow him. They were real, they had always been. Perhaps even more than her smile. Suddenly he wished Thor was there, to at least be with her. Someone needed to be with her.

He swallowed his rising panic and let his mother’s image burn into his eyes. He memorized her face, every careful line of it.

Odin’s verdict echoed out.

Shock spilled cold under his skin. Sweat broke out along his neck. People started shouting furiously, and all at once, before he had time to process the words. He had heard them wrong, surely. _Surely_.

But no. He should have known. Odin, the coward that he was—he should have _known_.

He raged. Every curse and insult he could imagine flew straight to Odin up on his throne, who only sat indifferent to each of them as he continued to speak over the uproar. Like he was a child again, throwing a tantrum, and Odin bored of the behavior.

Odin’s golden staff hit the floor without hesitation, without pity. It sounded with a thunderous crack so sharp that his entire being felt pierced through.

He fought. A sudden fit of panic ripped at him and he hit and kicked at the guards surrounding him. But they held to him fast, and more soldiers came to help push him down to his knees. Odin stood and he watched in horror as he descended the stairs towards him. He screamed his insults louder, and more viciously, indifferent to the spectacle he was causing. His struggling turned more violent. He wanted blood, and he fought and twisted until he was near ripping his joints out of place, trying to get away from those holding him down. But there hadn't been a strip of skin on his shoulders or arms or back that wasn’t held in place by bruising hands. His arms were chained and pulled away from his body, his legs were trapped by his own weight.

Odin stopped in front of him, practically bowing before him now. His breathing was ragged as he met his cool gaze. A last shred of denial slithered across his mind. He laughed, he laughed and laughed.

Odin wasn’t strong enough to take his magic. No one in the seven realms was. He laughed harder as he spat that to him. It was all for show, all for nothing. But Odin had only shaken his head disappointedly and looked at him in the same way he had when he was a child standing at the man’s feet. In the same way he had on the Bifrost a year ago, with him clutching his own scepter, staring up into his eyes with the void below about to swallow him alive. It was a look that knew the truth to a lie he had been foolish enough to believe his entire life.

Odin brought forth his hand, and held up a stone for them both to see. It was innocent; gray and smoothed like ones in river beds. His magic was screaming inside of him, alarmingly alive and bending towards it. He understood, then. But before he could make a move, there was a hand suddenly tightening around his jaw, forcing his head upwards and away.

He hissed through his clenched teeth. He refused to break Odin's gaze and glared down his nose at the man. He wanted him to remember the pure hatred in his eyes when he stripped him of everything he had left. Odin whispered some rehearsed apology, half-hearted and unforgiving. He sneered at him, would have spat if he could. Odin let his gaze linger for a moment longer, then without ceremony he brought the stone to the center of his torso, right below his ribs.

He wanted the stone to hurt him as it ripped his magic from him. He wanted to scream in agony as his connection to Yggdrasil was closed off from him forever. But the worse thing imaginable that could be done to him, felt of nothing.

No pressure, no pain—just sudden nothing.

The stone glowed green for a moment, then turned back to gray.

Odin stepped away.

He collapsed in the arms holding him still, suddenly exhausted. He had lost, and for that moment there was nothing left to fight. Hands forced him back to his feet, and held him when his knees gave out. The world opened wide and swallowed him.

Where Thor had had sun, he had snow. Mountains of it.

Terror cut through him suddenly. And for a moment of sick fear, He had thought he had misunderstood his punishment, that he had been sent somewhere else. But no. The sky above him was black but not void, and the snow around him covered earth, not stone and ice. There was a human road to his side, and human lights in the distance, showing through the torrents.

It was Midgard. Only Midgard.

Rage replaced his fear. The same rage that had fueled his attacks against the ice giants, and the humans after. It was a storm at the very core of him that only ever held the briefest of recesses, until its destruction came spiraling back.

Thanos had called it potential, once; a pure, unending hatred that only served to heighten his power.

Thor had called it madness.

He stood, knowing very well that Heimdall could see his every move now, without his magic to protect him from his gaze. Gingerly, he sought out those familiar tendrils of power inside of his core, refusing to believe Odin’s words.

His mind grazed it. It was timid and weak, and it flinched away from his touch like something wild. But there it was; his seidr, hidden safe inside him. He couldn’t stop the grin that twisted across his lips. Whatever amount of magic that had been stored in him before Odin's ritual had survived. It wouldn’t last; it was finite and would leave as he used it. Even if he didn’t actively cast, it would disperse from him over time.

But he had enough to hide from Heimdall with. He had enough to attack. To seek revenge. He could already picture the avengers' tower burning in his mind. He could see green flames swallowing Asgard. The humans first, and then the throne.

He begun laughing before he could stop himself. He cackled up to the sky, imagining Heimdall’s horror and his haste as he went to tell the All-Father of his failure. He dove deep into the power inside of him.

An explosion of magic fractured outwards and around him, great and green and livid.

Odin hadn’t contained him with his tricks, not entirely. The fool had failed just enough, and it would soon become the greatest mistake of his life, second only to allowing the bastard son of Laufrey to live. Odin would regret it. He promised himself that.

In that flash of green, he both concealed himself from Heimdall’s gaze and teleported himself far away from the snow.

From there he conserved what little was left of his magic and went on to secure himself within the world he had become prisoner to. He sought out people who sympathized with his hatred of the Avengers. He maintained his image, adorning his robes and horns to install fear where his limited magic could not. Across the span of a year, he built up a base. In two, he had the forces to pair with it. He had stationed himself as a threat once more.

It hadn’t last. His army soon had wanted a leader in the front lines when they began their attacks on the Avengers. A leader yielding devastating magic with a Chitauri army at his wake, like they remembered. When he couldn’t deliver that, eventually they had worked out—

He gasped as another sick lurch of pain wrecked through his abdomen.

A fresh wave of sickness swept down from his ribs to every nerve of his arms and legs; burning off at his fingertips. His head hit the glass behind him, hard. The pain knocked the breath from him. The concentration on his magic snapped.

His mind seized as he grasped desperately at the fleeing tendrils. He squeezed his eyes shut, tears streamed into the deltas of rain already carved into his sullen cheeks. His teeth clenched so tightly they cracked. He pushed himself further into the brick and held desperately to the fraying strands of seidr still left inside of him. His insides writhed with a burning pain so immensely excruciating that he could only just keep himself from screaming there in his shadowed corner.

Only a few seconds had passed before he could wrap himself around his magic again, but in those seconds, he had felt the veil slip from him. Heimdall would certainly have seen him; a flicker of green in the vast expanse of mortal grey.

The veil shifted more securely over him, but relief didn’t come. Magic scorched the back of his stomach and charred his hands. He watched in horror as the pale skin of his fingers and palms blackened and peeled back from the muscle, only to be healed by the same green flames that burned him.

He carefully hid his hands in the folds of his jacket, wary of those who might recognize the glow for what it was.

His seidr was beginning to forget him, burning him off like a fever. It was becoming harder to keep it steady around him. A constant sensation of fire was always there, just under his ribs, and it was getting worse.

Panic began to set in again. If Heimdall so much as got a glimpse at him, Thor would come. He knew that he had been hunting him for a while. What Thor would do exactly if he was found, he could only imagine. And after marshaling once more against the humans, and Avengers, he was sure Thor did not mean him well.

He had thought New York would be the perfect place to hide, and it had been, for a while. No one would have looked for him here, it was too obvious. But now he was hurt, and starved, and sick. He didn’t have the means to leave the city anymore. And as his body declined, so would his final hold on his magic. The veil would slip again and Heimdall would lead Thor’s vengeance right to his crippled remains.

He had to get up and go back. He had to hide. Everything else was secondary. Sustenance, shelter; secondary. Until his cache of magic dried up, and the last things he held of himself were lost, he would hide.

The streets were calmer now. It was the dead of night, maybe even morning. The rain was letting up.

His back scrapped along the brick as he inched himself up to his feet.

He stood there, for a moment, to collect himself, then he pushed forward. His steps were short, his knees trembling under the strain. One hand steadied him up against the wall. The stone caught on the black char of his palm as he slid it forward.

The bruises on his body had filled in and he could feel the swelling throb underneath his ribs. Nausea roiled through him, his head pounded, his heart shivered.

He blinked the water from his eyes.

He watched that singular tower, until it disappeared behind the molded brick and stone.


	2. Chapter 2

Silence filled the room around him.

Thor stood at the windows of the living room, close enough for his breath to fog the glass. He watched his reflection steadily fade and reappear behind the mist as he breathed. His fingers fidgeted at his thigh, the rough touch of his jeans on his fingertips. He looped a finger around the loose string at the seam and pulled at it nervously.

The city stretched out below him, its constellations of lights disappearing into pink-green haze. It was raining heavily again, the rush of it static in his ears. Thunder rumbled overhead, growing closer.

The quiet was quickly becoming painful, but his own cowardice kept him from speaking. He did not have the nerve nor leverage to break this pause between he and his friend. There was a tightness at the back of his throat, and an odd and frantic twinge in his chest. Thor’s life, as it had been for the better part of the last four years, had come to a blinding halt that afternoon. And because of it, he now felt violently trapped between a need to act immediately— and a need to calm, and reassess all he thought he knew— to the point where he could do neither with any conviction. He was overwhelmed in his hesitance, and just shy of erupting with the urgency building inside.

His eyes bore out into the city, and somewhere deep in him was a hope beyond reason that he would somehow catch a glimpse of dark hair and pale skin, or green magic flashing up from the shadows. It was impossible. He was too high up, the storm was too heavy, and because of this he could only just make out the bleary lights of cars in the rain, let alone a face. Thor felt his heart drop as once again the realization hit him.

Loki.

He was out there, somewhere, among the streets and buildings and millions of people. The city felt so sharply alive beneath him, then— lethal as it held the last of Thor’s hope in its jaws and smiled.

Rain pattered harder against the glass and Thor watched the colors of the city run. Lines of white and red smeared through the streets. The golden glow of windows blurred outwards like distant suns. That ethereal fog swallowed the city in pulses, waves of it spilling between the buildings like veins. Galaxies poured out in front of him, and Thor could not comprehend it. Loki had been here, perhaps for the entirety of those last years. Here in this city. And Thor had been gone, tearing through the rest of Earth desperate for a single whisper of him. He would never had thought New York. He should have. He should have known Loki would have come here. He should have felt some shimmer of him all those times he stood staring out these same windows. And still, even with Heimdall’s word he _still_ didn’t feel his brother near. There was no warm pulse in his chest, no itch in the back of his mind, urging him forward to wherever Loki hid.

He just— He thought he would have felt him, _something_ of him, had he been this close.

Lightning split overhead and the window panes rattled with thunder. Thor couldn’t be sure if he was causing the storm to heighten or not. He didn’t care if he was. His heart ached with the thought that Loki was alive— sick and wounded, but alive. He felt physically ill knowing it, and knowing that he would have to wait longer still to see him, to have him safe and at his side.

Thor remembered his own banishment all too clearly. When he had fallen, the pain of loss and failure had destroyed him. If not for Jane and Darcy and Eric, he wouldn’t have recovered from himself. He had been lucky to fall near that village, and to have met the mortals he did. But Heimdall saw no one like that besides his brother. Loki was alone and suffering for it. Earth was a cruel place to be, without someone on your side, Thor knew. How Loki had managed years of it, he couldn’t imagine, but despite his brother’s strength, Loki would not manage it much longer.

Heimdall saw him, had seen him, flickering like a nova between the city’s stars. He had seen him fading, his siedr burning out. He saw him dying.

His brother was out there, and so close. They were together in the same Midgardian city, under the same sky, the same storm. He’d find him fast, there was still time. Thor could imagine Loki’s smirk and those sharp eyes when he finally caught up to him. He could already hear his smooth voice, telling him how slow he had been, and how futile his efforts always were. There would most certainly be a fight, but none of it mattered anymore. He would find him and somehow _convince_ him to—

“Thor, buddy— look.”

Thor pulled abruptly from his thoughts. He hesitated at the window, stealing his courage for the inevitable. He heard movement. He heard the distinct clinking of a whiskey bottle as it settled on a glass rim and poured. Thor turned.

Tony was staring at him, an amber glass in his hand, filled once more, the ice melting. His back was leaning heavily against the bar behind him. A shadow of a beard softened the lines of his usually sharp goatee. Dark bags hung under his eyes.

Thor met his gaze, feeling as exhausted as Tony looked.

He had been rehearsing this moment in his head since the day Loki fell. Every plan he had ever thought of led back to this tower, to this single conversation. He knew that what he was asking for was perhaps more than what Tony’s friendship was worth. It hurt him to think that there could be a limit, that his brother was that limit.

Tony stayed staring at him, refusing to continue, and Thor realized that he was waiting for him to say something instead. But his throat remained tight, and the words wouldn’t come. There was so much pressure on what he said next, that the fear kept him silent. Persuasion had been Loki’s talent, never his. He was a motivator short of strategy, rallying for a common cause. It was easy when everyone had something to gain and everything to lose. But this was different entirely. This was terrifying. Tony had nothing to lose here, no one did except for him. And Thor had nothing to offer as incentive except a few pleading words and whatever worth their friendship had gained over the years.

To Thor’s own disappointment, he knew that if his chances of finding Loki himself were higher, he wouldn’t have considered asking for Tony’s help first. But Loki had magic left, not a lot, but enough. Thor refused to think what would happen if he went alone and Loki somehow managed to slip away. He wouldn’t lose him again. He couldn’t.

If this was going to work, he needed help, and not only with finding his brother, but after. He would need a place to go, somewhere safe with people he could trust to at least not kill him, and at most be able to look past the hatred and fear and see his sick brother underneath. The only place like that was here. He had to make Tony understand, that this tower was Loki’s second chance, and Thor’s last. He had to make things right. He couldn’t be impatient, and he couldn’t be proud. Not now.

Tony broke Thor’s gaze to watch his liquor swirl around his glass. The ice clinked against the edges.

“I know how much he means to you, I really do.” Tony whispered, breaking the silence first when it was clear Thor wouldn’t. “I mean, people just have to see those big, golden puppy eyes you get whenever you talk about him.”

He motioned towards whatever look Thor must have had on his face then, and tried to smile like it was a friendly joke. But Tony dropped it quick. The comment had hurt, and Thor didn’t try and hide it. Tony looked away uneasily and cleared his throat. He ran his fingers through his hair. He took another sip of whiskey. Swallowed.

“But you have to— _one_ , I’m not running a baby-sitting service here. This isn’t ‘Stark’s Home for the Criminally Gifted’. I have enough trouble with the wonder twins and little mister disappear running around, breaking things, and having absolutely no sense of personal space, and _two_ — Thor, the very _second_ he walks his skinny little green-jeans in this tower, S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to know about it. The _world_  is going to know about it. And what do you think is going to happen when everyone finds out that the Avengers are playing house with one of the world’s most wanted criminals, huh?”

Tony breathed, he rubbed a hand over his eyes and groaned.

“We need public approval after Sokovia. We need people to trust the Avengers again. S.H.I.E.L.D. just barely has their feet back on the ground. The UN is breathing down our necks, dying for us to slip up so they can storm this tower like it’s a terrorist cell. Every other villain out there is turning up with some new death gizmo or super serum that turns them into radioactive Reptars, and if that wasn’t bad enough, now most of them are teaming up together, and its Loki we can thank for that.” Tony turned his back and dropped to one of the bar stools, sliding his drink along with him. “If you ask me it’s all just getting a little too out of hand lately.”

The room grew silent again, nothing but the storm outside and the clinking of ice and glass to break it. Thor let the silence hold, but he walked slowly to the bar, pulling his own stool out and sitting down carefully beside him.

“I get what you’re trying to do.” Tony said quietly when Thor settled beside him. Thor watched him as Tony studied the glass in his hand. “But he’s not going to change just because you really, _really_ want him to.”

Tony gazed sullenly at the bar in front of him, bringing the glass up to his lips and mumbling while he held it there. “They never do.”

Another drink and Tony settled the glass down on the wood.

Thor watched Tony openly for a moment, then unthinkingly moved to reach for a second glass across the counter. Tony filled his own glass for the third time, then presented the amber bottle to Thor without comment. Thor took it and poured his own. Midgardian alcohol wasn’t strong enough to have any lasting effect, but the ritual of drinking was familiar to him, and it calmed his nerves just holding a glass. Thor let the dark liquor reflect his eyes for a moment, then he took his own drink. The burn was welcomed, as well as the gentle burst of warmth that ran through his core.

He saw Tony glance over as Thor downed the rest of his drink, settled his glass, and poured another out. When the glass was full in his hand once again, he spoke.

“I know my brother.” Thor started, and caught Tony’s his eye briefly, but soon returned it to his own glass below him. He felt braver now that Tony hadn’t outright refused him, but only just. “I know what he has done, and the pain he has caused.”

Thor swallowed and brought the glass up again, elbow hitting the wood. “He has terrorized countless people. He has lied and cheated and killed, while employing others to lie and cheat and kill. He has brought Thanos’ armies into New York. He has brought Doom’s armies into London, and Istanbul, and Seoul. He has threatened entire worlds—”

Tony glanced out of the corner of his eye. “You’re not making a very strong case here.”

Thor turned fully to Tony, who caught his gaze and kept it.

“He has hated,” Thor asserted, sharp and near berating. Tony watched Thor tense, as if his next words hurt him to speak. “and he has destroyed, and murdered. He has proven himself the villain in the eyes of Asgard, and your Earth, and many others.”

Thor looked defiantly into Tony’s wary stare, trying to convey as much sincerity as he could. “Yet I know there is still good inside my brother.”

“ _Thor_.” Tony scolded.

“I am not a fool, Stark.” Thor scolded back, keeping his voice steady, but tone firm. “I have seen the death, and the destruction. I have ripped his hands away from causing it so many times now. I have washed the blood he’s spilled from my own skin and armor. And I know just because I desperately long for the brother I knew before, it will not bring him back to me.”

Thor paused, forcing down the emotion that had risen within him.

“Loki will never be the same as he was.” He said, calmer. “But who he has become now, as jaded and as cruel as that person might be, he is still my brother. My _brother_. Under everything else he has become, there is the good that thrived before. I have seen it every time he has smiled at me, and every time he has tried to bury a blade between my ribs.”

“Thor, that’s not enough to—” Tony huffed in annoyance, he ran a hand through his hair again, fingers fisting the grey strands at his neck. “Look, yes. Sometimes there are people out there who do bad things, who aren’t bad people. And even sometimes they _are_ bad people, and you can get them to change... But sometimes there are people out there, people who are just, who just want to hurt you and you can’t save them and they’re— _they’re just evil_.” Tony carefully lifted his hands up in mock defense. “There, I said it. They’re just plain evil. Selfish, black-hearted, just in it for their own gain and glory, use every weakness they can against you evil. And you try really really hard, and you really,  _really_ want them to be good, _need_ them to be good. But in the end, they’re just— not.”

“If nothing is done now, if he is not found, he will die.”

“He’s killed a lot of people, Thor.” Tony whispered. “Maybe that’s just— what the guy deserves now.”

“You cannot ask me to sit idly by as he suffers. You cannot ask me not to try and save him. You can- _not_.”

Thor stopped himself. A high pitched _hiss_ shot through the air and Thor looked down to the glass protesting in his fist, a hairline fracture forming in the amber. He stared at it, and forced himself to relax his fingers before it shattered in his palm. He set his jaw and glared forward, away from Stark at his side. Thor allowed Stark’s comment to settle in his spine. He knew what his friends thought of his brother. Some voiced their damnation of Loki louder than others. Clint, for example, was the worst of them, and perhaps rightly so, considering.

This response was not a surprise. It was expected, if anything else— and he had planned for it. He took a breath.

“When I went to destroy Jötunheimr—”

“Thor—“

“No.” Thor interrupted Tony with a severe glare, his voice suddenly hard. “You will hear me. When I went to Jötunheimr, I was nothing short of a villain. I was selfish, ignorant, seeking only my own glory without a shred of empathy in my blackened heart for anyone under my aim.”

Tony leaned back and eyed him warily. He didn’t interrupt him this time. He waited, and Thor continued.

“I did not tell you, I could not. When I first spoke of it, the wound was too fresh, and you and our friends— I was so ashamed, am still ashamed, of what I’ve done. The truth wouldn’t come then.” Stark felt close, suddenly. Too close. And his eyes were a physical presence on his skin that Thor was sure would burn him soon.

“But now it must.” Thor decided. He paused to collect his thoughts.

“When I traveled there, I was sick with hatred. My view had become so twisted, so— _disturbed_ , that I thought I was doing the right thing. A noble, heroic thing. Because I believed that the Jötunn were less than me, because I believed that they were evil, truly evil, and that the world could not suffer them a moment longer."

"I killed them." Thor said, haunted. "I had hated them as I had hated nothing before. I wanted them dead, and so I killed them.”

“Wasn’t Loki the reason you went in the first place?” Tony slipped in, unconvinced. “He tricked you.”

“He did, and it ended with bloodshed; a hundred of them dead, maybe more.” Thor answered, glancing up across the bar. “But imagine had he not. If he’d had held his tongue and followed blindly with the rest of Asgard.”

“I would have been named king that day. King, with Asgard’s armies at my demand, and then any excuse would have done. Had a Jötunn so much as glared at Asgard with any amount of antipathy, I would have cried war. Hundreds of thousands would have died, Jötunn and Aesir alike, before it had sated my bloodlust and opened my eyes, if it would have even been possible to. I would have let the kingdoms fall in damned ruins before the ruins of my pride. Loki had foreseen this. He had acted because of this.”

“Had I not been banished here, had I not had my powers stripped from me, and met the people that I did, and learned the lessons I had needed, I would still be the person I was before; blinded by my ignorance and hate, spoiled with a thirst for war and far more blood on my hands.” Thor looked up and met Tony’s solemn gaze. “And if not Jötunheimr, I could have sought out Midgard, simply because I could. My views would not have altered, nor my piety. I could have taken everything as my own, slaughtered millions of humans as sport, thrust the rest to slavery, all with the throne behind me. And it would have been easy.”

“The avengers would have stopped you.” Tony whispered petulantly.

“I like to think they would have.” Thor answered, his smile strained.

Tony remained silent for a long while, thinking, processing, his focus solely on Thor. Thor was caught in his stare, not able to tear himself away as the shame burned as fire under his heart.

“So what are you trying to say?” Tony asked quietly, turning to face the bar, suddenly remembering the glass in front of him.

“We are not different." Thor stated plainly. "And in truth, had fate fallen otherwise, perhaps I would have been the one serving under Thanos, under Doom — with Loki here, pleading my case.”

Tony brought the glass to his lips, choosing to drink instead of giving an answer to that.

“And since I have also done heinous things, I must believe that there is still good in me, regardless.” Thor leaned forward, caught Tony’s gaze, and whispered. “Or else what is the point of this?”

Of this tower, the Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D.

Tony blinked, perhaps slightly stunned. His back went a little straighter, and his eyes left Thor's to stare blankly at the bottles lining the shelved wall of the bar. He sipped the rest of his whiskey and let his hands play idly with the empty glass when he sat it back on the counter.

“I will not excuse his crimes, nor will I ask you to forgive him.” Thor pushed the uncomfortable silence away and forced himself to keep talking. “I only ask that you allow him the same chance I was given, as we were all given; a chance to change, to wash some of the blood away. He could do it, I know he could, if allowed to heal, if allowed a safe place to do so.”

“Then why don’t you take him back— there?” Tony asked, pointing up. “To that big flying Nordic castle in the sky? Wouldn’t that be the safest place for him?”

“If I could take him home, I would. But Loki is banished, and both he and my father are too stubborn and unwilling to see past their own pain to admit that they have hurt the other. Even if I could return Loki to Asgard, I fear it would not help him, not in the way he needs.” Thor explained, his heart suddenly heavy with the thought of home. “Too much has happened in such a short time. Loki does not trust those he once considered his family, his friends. I do not believe that he even trusts me completely, if at all. But holding him in Asgard would only chase him further into himself, to places I fear that I’ll lose him for good.”

“And you think that a tower filled with people who he tried to kill, who tried to kill him, is going to be any better?” Tony started. “This is a concrete tower with a giant A plastered to the side, standing in the middle of New York City, Thor. A tower that is targeted every other _Tuesday_. It’s not exactly the Shangri-La of mental health.”

“He needs people he can trust, even if that trust only goes as far as to not being executed in his sleep. The Avengers do not attack sick men who cannot protect themselves, nor do they kill for revenge. He knows that. He will most certainly despise being here, every day of it. But he could heal here; by seeing all of us together, by knowing we all have blood in our ledgers, and are fighting to rectify it anyway. It could calm him, and the rest of it— him coming to terms with everything he has done, and everything that has been done to him— that could come with time. If he were afforded that time.” Thor paused, his eyes stinging more than he would care to admit.

“And S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. will not dare touch him, and I will tell Fury this myself.”

Tony huffed a laugh at Thor's seriousness, but became seriously himself quickly.

“He still has magic.” Tony pointed out. “He’s still a dangerous guy.”

“He is mortal. He is sick, and weak. His magic is nearly drained.”

“But nearly is still enough to kill someone, isn’t it?”

Thor exhaled heavily. His patience was beginning to fail him. Loki's magic was not something he had wanted to come up in this argument, because truly, he did not know if he could reign Loki in if his brother decided to turn against his efforts. Awarded entrance to Avenger's Tower, given the opportunity to be so close to those he hated, and with Doom and other enemies of the Avengers left invigorated in the wake of Loki's vengeance, he could easily play Thor. And Thor— he would let him. He had come to understand this about himself. He would let Loki play him, one last time, to finally know if there was any redeeming him, if there was any saving the person he once knew. And if not, he would do everything he could to shield the rest of his friends from Loki's wrath, from his own foolish mistakes.

“He will not hurt anyone in this tower.” Thor stated as firmly as he could, and as if his word ended argument.

“You can’t promise that.” Tony glared at him, understanding the lie for what it was. 

“He is my brother.” Thor defected. “And this is the only place he can go. You are the only ones I trust.”

It did not answer Stark’s question, nor was it any sort of strategic answer in his favor. Loki would have mocked him, accusing him of his sentiment getting the better of his judgement. But his words were true, as clumsy and as brash as they were. There was an emotion welling up inside Thor that he was terrified of. He felt that it might break him, should Tony deny him this. And the worst of it was, that it would not change his plans. If Tony refused, he would still try and find Loki, and heal his brother the best he could, here or elsewhere.

What would change would be this. Sitting at this bar, in this tower, talking and drinking. He would lose friendships here, Tony's friendship, all of theirs, ousted as a criminal for refusing to give his brother up to Midgard and S.H.I.E.L.D. 

If the Avengers came, he would fight. If they made him choose, he would choose Loki, for as long as Loki let him. 

Tony stared at him, and Thor sat torn under his scrutiny.

“He is in pain.” Thor stated as a final deffense, soft and desperate. “And he is dying.”

Tony opened his mouth as if to answer, but promptly closed it. The man stayed quiet for a long time, hunched over his drink and eyes stormy. Then suddenly, he sighed, loud and dramatic, and he threw his head back in obvious agitation.

"Shit." Tony said, with a hand scrubbing roughly over his face. 

“Tony?”

“Shit, shit, shit.” Tony said again, with just as much passion. Thor watched as Tony jumped up, kicked his stool back towards the bar, and paced around to the other side, snatching up both their glasses from the wood and dropping them into the sink with a worrying, shattering sound. He abruptly turned towards Thor, then, slamming both hands on the counter.

“He stays on your floor.” Tony said with volume, thrusting his finger at Thor’s chest. “ _With_ surveillance.”

Thor’s eyes grew as he registered Tony’s words. Shock spilled over him, intense but pleasant. His heart fell somewhere near his knees, very nearly breaking, and suddenly he was up on his feet, too, rushing around the bar to embrace his friend.

“Thank you.” Thor choked out, biting back the trembling that had overtaken his very core.

“Okay, okay, that’s enough.” Tony wheezed after a few seconds, patting what he could reach of Thor's back in surrender. Thor dropped him to the floor with care. Tony half-heartedly pushed Thor away to breathe, and smiled slightly when Thor let him.

“I still think this is a mistake.” Tony led on, walking towards the hall that led to the elevator. Thor followed. “And I still think he’s going to stab each and every one of us the second we turn around.”

“But?” Thor pressed, giddy and distrustful all at once.

“But you’re right, damn it all.” Tony sighed. “You’re right. He deserves a chance.”

Thor beamed, and nearly embraced Tony a second time. Instead he stepped into the elevator with him as the doors opened.

"Stop being all smiley, you've only convinced _me_." Tony said, his tone accusing but his eyes soft. "There's eight other people who live here."

“I will talk to the rest of our friends.” Thor said with assurance, already preparing himself. He tried not to let the impatience eat at him, but his time was running thin. He could hardly stop himself from jumping to push the button for Steve’s floor, the closest down. Tony’s hand stopped him short.

“Good.” Tony answered, casually moving Thor's hand away from the controls. Thor stared down in confusion and Tony stared back, his face breaking out into a warm smile, with a glint in his eye. “They’ve been waiting for about— _oh_ , fifteen minutes now.”

Tony pushed the button for the common floor instead and the doors slid shut.

Thor was suddenly contemplative, quiet, warily assessing Tony’s easy mood as the elevator dropped.

“You were going to say yes.” Thor said, finally.

Tony turned.

“Of course I was.” He answered, sincere, as if there should never have been any question of it. Thor wasn't sure what his heart did, then, but he could suddenly breathe easier. His thoughts were calm. 

Tony was on his side.

They watched the doors ding open once again, letting them out into the living room, where the rest of their friends sat, waiting for them.

Tony gripped Thor’s shoulder, reassuring him, and they walked forward onto the floor, together.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, remember me?
> 
> I saw infinity wars, and I graduated. Crazy.
> 
> Enjoy, and though I may return to clean it up here and there, it's done!
> 
> And thank you for all your kudos/comments! They keep me alive.

Tony had been a part of worse arguments.

 He could list three right off the top of his head with Pepper. Another thirty or so with his father, way back when. A couple more with Bruce, Steve. Fury. Rodney.

Coulson, Clint, Natasha.

All of them, all at once.

Hell, even Thor. There was plenty of Thor thrown in there, of fights that ended in yelling and hammer-shaped holes in the plaster.

Over the years, they had all done their own damage to each other, but Tony had always chalked it up to tension. Nerves, trauma, all that fun stuff. After all, that’s what big, superhero families were for, right? Contractor bills and therapy.

What mattered, he guessed, was at the end of the day, at the end of every fight, they cared for each other. Partners, friends, family,  _whatever_  they were— they all had sworn to have each other’s back. That’s what they told each other. That they could all be cruel, arrogant, hateful, from time to time. But they could also be loving. Selfless. Diplomatic.

Tony reassured himself of this once again as he sat carefully at the bar and watched as Thor diplomatically promised Clint that he would personally send his mangled mortal corpse to the pits of Hel if he insulted his brother again.

“— crackpot, psycho, fruitcake, unstable,  _bat-shit_   _CRAZY!_ ” Clint listed off his fingers, getting progressively louder as Thor shouted and tried to push past Steve, who had generously stuck himself between the two. In fact, Steve was probably the only reason Clint was still conscious and breathing, if the grip Thor had on his hammer was any sign.

_Happy, loving, super-family._

“I will tear your tongue from your skull, Barton, if you do not still it  _now!_ ” Thor yelled, practically flying over Steve’s shoulder to get to Clint. Clint danced back from Thor’s hand as it came down to grab him.

Steve shot Tony a furious look as he tried to hold himself up under the strain of Thor’s weight.

 “ _A little help!”_  Steve grounded out.

Tony sighed and hopped off his stool. He rounded the sofa where Wanda, Pietro, and Vision sat, all three more than a little uncomfortable, watching the show. This infighting was still new to them, Tony guessed. They hadn’t gotten used to it yet, even after Germany.

Thor suddenly tore Steve away from himself and threw him half-way across the room. Steve landed with a solid  _thunk_  several feet away, denting the wooden floors beneath him and knocking over a particularly ugly orange vase which went shattering onto the floor around him.

 _Okay_ , Tony frowned.  _Maybe you never really got used to this_.

Clint scrambled behind the couch as Thor moved on him, but suddenly Tony was there, catching Thor’s arm before he could close in.

“Thor,” Tony pulled him back with all his might, which wasn’t much in comparison, not without his suit. But Thor consciously let Tony still him. His breathing sounded harsh echoing off the walls, and his face was an ugly shade of red.

Tony stretched a bit at Thor’s side, trying to catch his eye.

“Buddy. What did we talk about?” He whispered calmly.

“How am I supposed to be civil, Stark, when this, this _— CHICKEN_ of a man refuses to quiet!” Thor roared, pointing his hammer out towards Clint.

“Oh, good one, Thor.” Clint mocked him, carefully placing himself behind Natasha’s head, who was very much still seated on the couch and showing no sign of getting up soon, threat to Clint’s life or no. “ _Chicken_. Never heard  _that_  one.”

Thor flinched forward, but Tony moved in front of him, both hands solid on Thor’s chest.

“Hey, hey! Alright, that’s enough!” Tony called out and pushed Thor until he turned around and walked where Tony directed him. “Let’s all take five. A few minutes to clear our heads, then we can start this one over, huh?”

“If you think we’re going to change our minds in five minutes then you’re crazier than Loki, Stark!” Clint shot out with their backs turned to him.

Thor let the insult lay, but Tony could feel the hot anger rippling off him. There was molten fury in Thor’s eyes, but Tony could suddenly tell by the way Thor’s posture snagged as they neared the elevator that there was something a little heavier in there. Defeat, maybe.

Tony watched as Thor’s figure slumped the final few inches the second they were safely hidden in the hallway, beyond view of Clint, Steve, and everyone else. Thor’s hand rose to shield his eyes.

“I thought I had gotten better at this.” Thor whispered hatefully, coming to a stop before the elevator doors. His teeth were clinched and for a brief and shocking moment Tony wasn’t sure if Thor was crying or not. Then sad, but dry eyes shot up from behind his fingers, and Thor continued.

“Have I ruined this?” He asked, determined but so exhausted.

Tony hesitated, then raised his own hand to pat Thor on the shoulder.

“It wasn’t your best speech.” He spoke plainly. Thor crumpled further into his exhausted hunch.

“What do I do.” Thor asked brokenly.

“Let’s give them time to breathe. Maybe tomorrow—”

“I don’t have tomorrow!” Thor shouted back, a little desperate. “These are not theatrics, Tony. Loki does not  _have_  tomorrow. He barely has this night! And in these waning few hours I’ve managed only to rouse all our friends to anger.”

“I wouldn’t say anger. Annoyed, maybe.”

“ _Stark._ ” Thor chastised, angry himself, and Tony’s hand was knocked from Thor’s shoulder. Thor whirled around to the elevator and forcefully jammed his finger against the call button.

“If they will not allow my brother refuge, if they will not help me,” Thor growled, “then I shall do it alone.”

“Now wait a second!” Tony scrambled, putting himself between Thor and the opening elevator doors.

“I will not wait. I cannot.” Thor answered solemnly, moving to push Tony aside. “I will respect your terms, I will not bring him here, but I must find him  _now_.”

“Then what the hell was all this for?” Tony held Thor’s furious gaze. “You just told me that he could run, you  _just_  gave me this whole speech, upstairs. That if you don’t have help, you lose him. And now you’re just going to do exactly that because Clint called you names and you got mad? Thor, you’re being stupid!”

“I  _know_ —!” Thor cried with the last of his energy, his chest heaving. Then suddenly and horribly, Thor’s demeanor collapsed in front of Tony, his anger spilling out hot over his cheek. “I am. I know. But what else do I do?” Thor begged quietly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands.

“The last thing my brother feels in this world will  _not_  be loneliness. Even if he runs from me, he shall see me reaching out for him one last time, and he shall _know_ that his passing will—”

Thor’s voice caught viciously, his eyes pinching shut only to shed more tears.

“Hey,” Tony started, shooting towards Thor, but then hesitating, awkwardly searching for a place to lay his hand. “Hey, breathe a second for me, okay?”

“I don’t have—”

“Yeah, you’re on a time crunch, I get it.” Tony reassured him gently, resting his hand once more on his shoulder. “But you already know what will happen if you go after him alone, you told me. Best case scenario you knock him out before he teleports, but then what do you do? Where do you go?”

“I don’t know.” A shudder wracked Thor’s body as he admitted it. He hung his head low in his hands, letting his tears escape his fingers and straight to the floor between them.

And Tony stood. Struck. He had a handful of sobbing Asgardian, a man he had never to this day seen cry, and he had no clue what to do about it. Thor was the happy-go-lucky, muscled warrior puppy on the team. Rally speech and battle cry included. Not that any of them were prone to breaking down, exactly. There was just something especially wrong with seeing Thor like that. Broken down.

“You know what,” Tony whispered suddenly, after another shudder shook Thor’s shoulders. “Give me ten minutes. Go upstairs, don’t do anything…  _you_ , and just wait.”

“Tony..” Thor sniffed softly, leaning up and rubbing at his eyes to clear his view.

“Ten minutes!” Tony assured him, stepping aside so that Thor could continue into the elevator.

“This is not your fight.” Thor protested miserably. “You should not have to convince them  _for_  me.”

“Of course it’s my fight! I told you I’d help you and that’s what I’ll do.” Tony shot back kindly. “If he can’t stay here, then I’ll build him his own damned tower right next door. I’ll even make it taller, he’d love it.”

“He would.” Thor laughed bitterly, despite himself.

“We’d get those rope phones and everything.” Tony joked, and at Thor’s look of mild confusion he dropped the joke and moved to gently push Thor into the elevator. “Nevermind. Just trust me.”

Thor followed at Tony’s insistence, straightening up as he passed through the doors. He turned to eye Tony once more, his face still red and puffy but otherwise calm.

“Go calm down. Get a plan together, JARVIS will tell you when I’m heading your way.” Tony reached around for the buttons inside and went to press for Thor’s floor. A warm hand caught his forearm gently. Tony looked into Thor’s eyes, questioning.

“I am a coward for this.” Thor said, sad and low. He gave Tony’s arm a grateful squeeze and took his hand away. “ _Thank you_.”

“You’re not a coward, point break.” Tony smiled warmly. “You just  _really_ suck at diplomacy.”

Thor bowed his head in admission, sullen with the truth.

“Plus, you really hate Clint.” Tony laughed, finally pressing the button, and allowing the doors to close.

“— little  _weasel_ —” Tony managed to hear Thor grumble before the doors closed completely.

Tony’s smiled. Then let it drop. He sighed.

He turned around and walked back.

“You have finally cracked.” Clint gave a short laugh at Tony as he rounded the corner, Clint’s eyes were sharp as he crashed backwards onto the couch, jostling Natasha beside him.

“You said  _yes_  to this?” Steve had picked himself up and dusted off the orange ceramic from his shirt. He now stood in the center of the space, colored an angry shade of disappointed. 

Tony ignored them both in favor for wondering back up to his bar stool and sat down smoothly.

“Well.” Tony huffed out, turning back towards the living room, where all six pairs of eyes were trained on him. “That was quite a show, wasn’t it. Some Grade-A Maury stuff. Really brings back memories.”

“Tony _._ ” Steve chided.

“All of us fighting each other again. Especially you, Clint. Have you been practicing all those one-liners? Or were they just something that you came up with on the—”

“ _Tony!_ ”

“ _What?_ ” Tony shouted back, going rigid in his seat. “You all knew where this was heading. Don’t act like you’re shocked, he’s been looking for him for  _years_.”

Steve’s glare was cold, accusing. It settled sharply in some lonely place still left inside Tony. He had expected this kind of reaction from Clint, but not Steve. Clint had been mind-controlled by Loki, forced to kill a couple of his friends at the S.H.I.E.L.D compound,  _and_  on the Helicarrier. So, Clint had good reason to be angry at Thor, at Tony, for asking something like this. And when Clint was angry, he naturally started acting like a pissed off five-year-old and wormed his way under people’s skin. That’s what Clint was good at. They were used to it. It was half his skill as an Avenger.

The other half was climbing trees and shooting flimsy metal arrows at superhumans, so.

Tony supposed he had to be good at  _something_  practical.

But Steve? Steve had been quiet the entire time Thor had them out searching for-slash-fighting his brother. Tony had assumed that meant Steve had resigned himself to the idea that one day, he and Loki would be tower-mates, or something close enough to it.

Surprise, surprise. Steve had just been saving his punches.

It shouldn’t still hurt the second time, but. That’s what  _Steve_  was good at, after all.

During Thor’s speech, everyone except the four of them had been silent. Even Natasha, who had made it her goal in life now to dish out mildly cryptic, majorly threatening advice to the group like some twisted Aunt Yoda. She and Vision had been the two people to really bring the group back together, after they had finished tearing each other apart. She knew what was right, she knew what they needed, and she knew how to guilt trip like a son of a bitch. Tony could have bet money walking in that she would have taken his side. But now with Clint and Steve— well.

Wanda and Pietro really had no alliances except for each other, and maybe Vision, but definitely not to him. And Vision himself? He was usually on the side of no fighting in general, if it could be helped. A true neutral friend, and a true neutral asshole.

“The plan was never to let Loki live with us.” Steve stated, as if it had been obvious the entire four years they had spent searching.

“What  _was_ the plan, then, Steve? Let Loki die. Really?” Tony bit back.

“Yes!” Clint called out from his slumped position on the sofa, throwing his arms up emphatically. Natasha glared at him and moved herself out from behind Clint’s elbow, but when her eyes met Tony’s, she still said nothing.

Tony shot Clint a look instead. And he stared back, unapologetic.

Steve’s voice dropped into a stern whisper.

“You can’t seriously be considering—"

“Not considering, decided.” Tony interrupted.

“Decided?” Steve flinched back and laughed. “Is that it then? You say the word and we all go along with it, because it’s your tower, your rules?”

“That’s not what I said.” Tony argued, trying to keep himself cool and collected. “You asked if I was considering it. I have. I’ve decided. That’s why I’m here. You haven’t yet. That’s why  _you’re_  here.”

“ _Tony._ ”

 _“Steve_.” Tony mocked.

“ _No!_ ”

The word echoed, and Steve stood defiant, as if his word was all-encompassing. Final. Tony couldn’t tell if Steve was too dense to realize his hypocrisy in that moment, or if he just didn’t care. Either way, it Steve was trying his patience. But he wasn’t the only one, it seemed. The mood of the whole room had turned sour. Wanda shifted in her seat, sending her brother a look which he matched. Tony could even feel the weight of Natasha’s gaze slipping off Steve and settling onto him, waiting for his sure rebuttal.

“No?” Tony asked him quietly. He hadn’t planned it, but he suddenly stood up from his stool and stepped down the few stairs leading into the sunken living space. He stalked towards Steve, not meaning it as a challenge, but he was already losing to the feeling of that residual ache in his body, left behind from Siberia. It was drawing him in. What it was like to finally take a hit, and to hit back, just to break some tension and finally  _talk_.

Damn, Tony never thought he’d miss  _talking_.

“No. Absolutely not.” Steve answered again, keeping his posture straight and imposing, and refusing to move back as Tony stepped forward.

“Wow,” Tony huffed out a laugh. He shook his head and drove his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “You know, if I had pegged anyone as the second chance guy, it would’ve been you, Cap.” Tony’s eyes slid to Steve’s again, he let a small but sharp smirk settle on his face. “How’s Bucky, by the way? Good?”

“That’s different.” Steve jerked, hissing through his teeth. His fists flexed at his sides.

“It’s not.” Tony sneered back. And Tony knew it was low, but it didn’t make it less true.

All at once there was a sick giddiness in Tony’s chest. There were words that he had been practicing in his head for months now, and he suddenly realized he was about to say them, out loud, and to Steve. He hadn’t planned it like this, but the anger stored inside him was bubbling up and out with or without Tony’s permission. Steve could see it too, knew it was coming, and he set his shoulders square with Tony, as if readying for a fight. But Tony wasn’t scared of him. He had never been. Not in Germany, not in Siberia, not gasping for breath in the mangled pieces of his suit, and not now.

“I say nothing.” Tony started, more than bitter. “He comes and goes in this tower freely, he’s got his own goddamned room, right next to yours. Breakfast club, movie nights, he’s right there and I don’t say a damned thing. I could paint each floor of this tower, each room, with a different person’s blood, that he’s spilled, and two of those in my _parent’s_ blood. My  _mom_  and my  _fucking_   _dad_. And you know what? You know what’s funny? There was none of  _this_ —!"

Tony gestured wildly to the room, to the people circling them, watching. “There was no  _meeting_ , no  _group vote!_  He just showed up one day and that was it, and I said  _nothing!_ ”

His breathing was hard, fast. Anxiety was slowly clawing at his ribs, but Tony swallowed it down before it gripped his heart or he started feeling anything as pitiful as guilt in this moment. Because this was Steve’s fault, not his. This was _Steve_ being unfair and cruel, not _him_. Tony watched Steve, and Steve watched him back, furious, jaw tight and eyes hard.

“But you think this is somehow all different. Bucky’s your friend? Loki is Thor’s  _brother_. Cast off into exile, separated from friends and family, tortured, killed a lot of people.” Tony’s breath caught on a ragged laugh. “It doesn’t just sound  _familiar_ , Steve, it’s the same goddamn  _story_.”

Steve flinched forward, and Tony, instinctively, took a step back, fully expecting that fist he had been waiting for. But Steve faltered.

They didn’t talk about this, hadn’t talked about it since they both had beat each other bloody in the snow. Somewhere between picking up the pieces of the Mark 46 and melting down Steve’s shield back in to one piece, they had agreed to completely ignore Barnes’ history. Maybe for the good of the team, and probably for the good of their mental health. Or despite it. Bruce and Nat had a few words to say about that every now and then, but as far as every day encounters went, Steve would hold back the worst of his criticism of Tony’s behavior, and Tony would pretend that the man who brutally and mercilessly murdered his parents wasn’t occasionally a guest in his tower.

He cooked him fucking french toast once, for fuck’s sake.

He wasn’t looking for some fantastic display of recognition, but a god-damned pat on the back once and a while for being so damn understanding wouldn’t hurt.

Nothing was fixed between them. They knew that. And it probably wouldn’t be for a very long time, if ever. That’s what Tony’s therapist had said. It takes time, time, more time. It had already been a _year_. Tony wasn’t even sure why Steve had moved back into the tower after everything, but when Steve did, he hadn’t questioned it. And when Tony heard Steve had been looking elsewhere for an apartment of his own, he hadn’t questioned it. And when the apartment search had stopped around the time Barnes started coming around, Tony wrote it all up to Steve suddenly realizing that he wasn’t able to support both himself and an ex-assassin on his zero-dollar-a-month income. Tony didn’t mind being mooched off of, really, he didn’t. What he  _did_  mind, however, was just how strained their friendship had become. How fucking awkward. Not just his and Steve’s. All of them. They were going through the motions now. They stepped around it like glass but came out bloody most days anyway. This in front of him was the most emotion he had gotten out of anyone here in all those terrible months.

Steve’s burning sneer dug into Tony’s own darkened face and the hate there at least felt  _real_. Like progress towards  _something_. Either to fix this mess, or to destroy them. He didn’t care anymore. Something had torn back on the tarmac, and for one reason or another the stitches just kept pulling loose.

“Bucky was  _forced_  to kill people.” Steve’s voice shook as he hovered inches from Tony’s face. “He didn’t  _want_  to do it. He didn’t  _laugh_  while doing it. They  _made_  him.”

“So Loki is fucking crazy,” Tony quipped back as steadily as he could with the core of his body quivering. The cocktail of anxiety, anger, and adrenaline pouring into his veins wasn’t exactly helping his communication skills. “He’s been through a lot.”

“ _Through a lot?”_ Steve jerked a bit closer, his hand flashing up and twisting the hem of Tony’s shirt in his fist. Steve pulled him up to his full height, so Tony had to stretch on his toes to save his AC/DC shirt from stretching. Tony’s hands flew to Steve’s, and he sunk his nails into the flesh of Steve’s hand as hard as he could, knowing too well that the super soldier probably didn’t even register it as painful. He probably wasn’t even breaking skin. “We’ve  _all_  been through a lot, and you don’t see us going off to kill people as some bullshit coping mechanism, Tony.”

“ _Language_.” Tony choked out.

Natasha shot up as Steve lunged for Tony’s throat—

“If I may say something?” 

Vision’s voice broke through, cutting as if it had been broadcasted straight into their minds, instead of into the room.

Steve was tensed, ready to hit something. Which, presently, had seemed likely to be Tony’s face. Tony had both of his fists around Steve’s, trying to save both his circulation as Steve’s fingers dug into his trachea, and his shirt from ripping as his feet barely scraped across the floor. Natasha stood ready a couple inches away, to unlock Steve from Tony. But the second Vision had spoken, all three of their attentions shot to him, still sitting calmly on the couch.

Steve exhaled noisily, and Tony’s shirt slipped from Steve’s fist. He turned to face Vision. Tony followed suit, palm gently cradling his throat.

“Sure, pal. Go for it.” Tony croaked, rubbing at his neck, and becoming more upset than he probably should have for just how stretched out the collar of his shirt was now.

“Yes, well.” Vision cleared his throat, meeting them each in the eye. “If the question is whether Loki is deserving of our help or not, solely based on his past actions, I believe the answer clear.”

“If we were to consult most, if not all, of our own histories, one way or another we all started off as a villain in our current perspective.” He spoke, steadily. “Natasha was an assassin, Clint a mercenary. Wanda and Pietro were under Hydra’s order.”

Vision jaw clicked shut, and he stopped immediately. As if suddenly aware of himself, he turned towards Wanda and held her gaze inquiringly. She gave him a short smile and slipped her hands into his, which Vision took, visibly grateful. He stared, nearly in awe of her, for a moment more.

“Tony supplied weapons to terrorist organizations.” He continued quietly, but quickly louder, twisting back towards the room. “Bruce under his alter ego, the Hulk, destroyed cities. And I, myself, am a merge of Ultron, who was set upon leveling the Earth with an asteroid and plummeting humanity into extinction, and of a stone whose power is unfathomable in the destruction it could have, and has, set forth upon the universe.”

Each one of them were silent as Vision spoke but grew increasingly uneasy as their own histories were drudged up and waved back in front of them. Tony felt his own acute guilt and embarrassment rise in his stomach as Vision mentioned him. And one by one, Tony saw them all break eye-contact and bow their heads, the truth still too new and sudden. Wanda’s hands stayed in Vision’s, but after he had turned away, her eyes had glazed over, and remained hauntedly unfocused. Pietro stared out the windows to his right, watching the rain, hands in his lap and fingers picking at the stitching of his jeans. Tony could feel Natasha as she stood slightly more rigid at his side. And even Clint had straightened up from his slumped position on the couch, eyes hard and jaw clinched.

But Steve remained unmoved. In fact, Tony could swear there was a distinct air of noble superiority coming from his left that set his teeth on edge and nerves on fire.

But then Tony saw Vision’s chilling gaze locked with Steve’s.

“Even you have killed.” Vision accused, his voice slow and certain.

Suddenly that noble air was gone, vacuumed out and replaced with something much darker.

“During the war you killed thousands of soldiers.”

“I killed  _Nazis_.” Steve spat out viciously.

“ _Yes_ ,” Vision hesitantly continued. “However, while under duress, the German enrollment in the military was mandatory, and as with any war, the likelihood that every soldier you encountered held the same ideology as the fascist movement is statistically improbable—"

“ _I_ am not a  _killer_.” Steve shouted, flustered and livid. “I don’t, I didn’t _kill_  people like—”

Steve’s voice caught.

The room fell silent.

Tony blinked.

He watched as Steve anxiously glanced around, his breathing noticeably hard, his cheeks hot.

“That’s not what I meant.” Steve backpedaled after a terribly painful pause. Tony glanced behind him as Natasha sat back down beside Clint, her eyes on Tony, while Clint’s own furious glare was trained on the back of Steve’s head alone.

“That’s _not_ what I meant.” Steve insisted again, near pleading. This time he whirled back towards Tony, frantic for someone to acknowledge him. The uncomfortable pressure in the room kept growing, and eventually Tony met his eyes again. Steve’s were hard, but desperate. And so fucking guilty. “You  _know_ that."

Tony was decidedly quiet for a long while. It was probably cruel to let Steve stew in his regret, but there was power behind it too. Steve had never been one to hold back from criticizing him, from throwing him disproving glares, and little dejecting comments, and otherwise comparing him to his father, much in the same way his actual father had done. And now, Steve had backed himself into a corner, with everyone he could have called a friend in the room. And it would be so easy to repay him for all the guilt he had thrust upon Tony. It would be so easy, to be selfish.

“I know.” Tony let himself say. Did he believe him? Not really, but Tony had a job to do here. And the success of that job now rested on how guilty he could make Captain America feel in the next five minutes. He watched as brief relief washed over Steve, but Tony didn’t wait to let Steve recover fully.

“But I agree with Vision.” Tony announced, all the while holding Steve’s volatile scrutiny. “All of us—  _most_  of us. We’ve been on that other side. And somehow, we were lucky. We’re lucky. We got to build up from all the shit life through at us. We got to build the Avengers, this entire thing based on the idea that even if you’ve done the worse things  _imaginable_ — you could come here. Do this. Be a fucking  _hero_  and somehow make it all better.”

Tony paused, but he couldn’t quite meet anyone’s eyes. Steve had slowly backed away from the center of the room, and now hovered in the space between the couches. Arms crossing over his chest defensively and eyes down-casted.

“Now do we always make it better? Nope.” Tony answered, lips catching hard on the ‘p’. He smiled wistfully, fingers coming up to smooth down his goatee. “Do a whole lot of people still see us as villains? Hell yes. But the point is, is that we were given the chance to change the damage we’ve done. Whatever damage we’ve done. The point is, is that we  _try_. If we condemned every fucking person in this room for their past, there wouldn’t be a single goddamned Avenger left.”

Tony turned sharply towards Steve. “Yes, except maybe you, Steve, on a technicality. But what does that mean then? Do you judge us?”

“I don’t judge any of you.” Steve answered adamantly. His eyes bright but shoulders heavy. “Who you are now is what matters.”

“And we’ve all been through hell to be the people we are now.” Tony said plainly, challenging anyone to disagree with him but confident no one would. “It took us making mistakes, making choices, of having those choices available to us, and then defending them once we made them.”

Tony caught Steve’s attention and kept it. “That’s what Loki needs. He needs a choice.”

Steve stared back, and Tony could see the man’s resolve finally waver.

“And if we don’t give him that, then—” Tony swallowed, he shrugged, shaking his head as he motioned around the room. “Then what’s the point of all this?”

“If we let him into the tower, he’ll burn it down.” Steve said, reaching for some sort of control again.

“I got plenty of towers.” Tony joked half-heartedly. But when Steve shot him another glare he sighed. “He’s human now. And from what Thor hears, we’ve definitely faced scarier people than him.”

“You can’t treat him like he’s some defenseless guy on the street, Tony, this is  _Loki_. The  _God of Mischief._ Magic or not, he’ll get into our heads, he’ll give every villain we’ve ever known all the information he can get his hands on.”

“Unless the God of Mischief figured out how to hack super A.I. these last few years, he’s not getting anything.”

Steve’s hands shot up out of frustration, and Tony snapped a little more, too.

“Look, I’m not telling you to like the guy!” Tony nearly shouted. “Damn, Steve, you never even have to  _see_  him! He’ll stay on Thor’s level, under 24-hour surveillance. But if we don’t help him now, one of two things happen.  _One_ , he dies—"

“Good, let him.” Clint mumbled loudly from his corner.

“—  _or two,_ ” Tony breathed through his nose and ignored him. “He gets better somehow. He gets right back up and goes on being evil.”

“But if we can get to him first, fix him up, get him in a good place— then maybe we can change something.” Tony all but pleaded. “If not, then we finally know for sure. Thor finally knows for sure, and we move forward certain that there’s no saving him.”

Tony breathed. His nerves were finally settling under his skin, having said everything he had meant to say tonight. He felt tired, suddenly. And emotionally drained. He wanted very much to go upstairs and nurse his headache with something slightly toxic, but Tony felt that the night wouldn’t be over for quite a while now, whatever happened next.

But he straightened himself and willed his weariness away. He locked eyes with Steve once more, then he let his gaze flicker to everyone else’s.

“So, what do you say?” He asked, finally.

“You’re being reckless, this is dangerous, Tony.” Steve argued again but even Tony could see the steam leaving him, and quickly.

“What do you  _say_?” Tony urged.

“ _Tony_ —”

“Yes.”

Both turned, surprised, towards Natasha.

“Nat?” Clint asked beside her, more stunned than the two of them combined, and more than a little hurt.

She met Clint’s stare nonchalantly and shrugged.

“Yes.” She said again. “I agree. We can’t just let him die. And he would be easier to control in here than out there.”

“You’re both crazy if you think we can  _control_  Loki.” Steve yelled, flinging his arm between them accusingly. Tony paid little attention to him and watched as Clint’s face grew red and angry.

“You’ve absolutely lost it!” Clint laughed sarcastically, dumbfounded. He removed himself from Natasha’s side and settled as far away from her as the couch would allow him, all to give her an incredulous stare.

“No!’ Clint started again. “I vote no! Guys, we’ve been trying to kill this fucker for  _years_  and now the world is finally giving us a break here and doing the job for us. It’s karma!”

“Clint—”

“You didn’t get mind-fucked by the guy, Nat!” Clint argued hysterically, his voice betraying him. Natasha sat calmly and listened as Clint pushed on edge. “I didn’t just  _see_  it in him, I  _felt_  how unhinged the guy was! He got into my mind and I was trapped in his _sick—_ He would have done anything to just get his hands on something, anything just to  _destroy_ , especially Thor! That kind’a crazy’s not something you can just hug away!”

“Then say no.” Natasha answered after she let Clint breathe, herself cool and impassive. Clint began to fidget under her gaze, and a flicker of grief flashing across his face as his brows pulled together and his jaw dropped, hopelessly searching for words.

“ _Nat_ —"

“If you think there’s no saving a guy like him,” Her voice kind, but firm, “Then say no.”

“This is stupid.” Steve declared, petulantly. He walked up and out of the sunken living room to sit at the bar alone, back turned and face hidden from the rest of them. Tony let him pass. There was a sudden feeling of victory pouring along his skin, and Tony’s heart could barely handle it, beating twice it’s normal speed and pounding in his ears. He shook it off and ripped himself away from Clint and Natasha.

“What about you guys?” Tony switched his attention to the twins, who looked up to him without any excess of emotion between them. Tony didn’t let it deter him, though. He was close, and he could taste victory now. “You guys haven’t said anything yet. Thoughts?”

They looked at each other, then Wanda spoke without breaking her brother’s gaze.

“I’ve only heard of this man, and what he has done. But from what I  _do_ know,” Her eyes then turned towards Tony, soft and bright. “He and us do not seem so different. My brother and I have both hated you, Stark, to murder and worse. But you’ve welcomed our regret, and we, yours. Loki should be offered the same chance.”

“Thank you.” Tony said, his throat pulling tight for a moment, but he pushed through. “Pietro?”

“I agree with my sister, as always.” He answered sweetly, taking one of her hands, and folding it into his. “If there was change in us, there is in him.”

“You’re all crazy.” Steve mumbled without turning towards them, his arms crossed on the counter.

“Vision?” Tony asked, as he ignored Steve.

“I am neither for, nor against the idea.” Vision began. “The chance that Loki will come to side with the Avengers is unlikely. However, I do believe that there is fear in him that could be healed here.”

“You gotta pick one, buddy. Yes or no.”

“Yes, I— yes.”

Tony’s shoulders dropped slightly in relief. He hesitantly again turned towards Nat and Clint, who were still staring the other down from where they sat, painfully separated.

“Clint?” Tony asked.

Clint at first didn’t seem like he was going to answer him, and instead continued searching Natasha’s eyes intensely as if there was an answer there, or as if there was a conversation at full force, hidden from the rest of them.

Then, finally, and suddenly, Clint’s eyes flickered to his and he broke.

“Yeah, whatever.” He whispered and abruptly rose to his feet and walked as casually as he could to the hallway leading to the elevator. Natasha reached for his arm before he dodged her, and she squeezed him once, reassuringly, before letting him pass. Tony saw Clint give her a pained smile for a brief moment, then Clint let it drop and disappeared into the hallway.

“Steve?”

Steve didn’t move either, still planted at the bar. His arms were still crossed over his chest, elbows firm on the counter, eyes straight down, focusing on the grain.

“Well I can’t exactly say no now, can I?” He answered, resentfully.

“If you say no, he doesn’t step a foot in this tower.” Tony offered willingly, knowing too well the power he was handing over. He walked up the steps, towards the bar, but stopped short of Steve himself. “Democracy is for movie night, not here. This is unanimous.”

Tony tried to get in another uncomfortable joke, but then he found blue eyes shooting to his again. Steve’s brows were drawn, his jaw set. Tony felt a slight glare settle back on his features as he readied himself for the worst. Fully expecting it, now.

But then— Steve gave. He sighed, deflating right there on the counter, arms uncrossing, and feet hitting the floor beneath him, defeated.

“Fine.” Steve relented.

“Fine?”

“Yes. Fine.”

Steve stood up and turned to make from the elevator himself, but suddenly Tony was in front of him, unaware of why or how.

“Steve—"

“But when he  _does_  betray us,” Steve stopped him hard, eyes hot, and his finger pointed to Tony’s chest. “I get to say I told you so.”

“Fair deal.” Tony answered, voice soft. Steve looked at him a moment longer, then shook his head slightly, dropped his arm, and walked past Tony without another word. Steve rounded the corner and disappeared as well.

Tony let himself breathe for a second. He leaned backwards, and his hand caught the chair to his side to steady him. His other hand came up to pull on the hem of his t-shirt, letting the air cool his bruising neck.

“And Bruce?” Natasha asked suddenly to his right. Tony turned towards her.

“Huh? Oh, I asked him a few hours ago.” Tony swallowed and cleared his throat. “—said yes.”

“Okay.” She answered. “So what happens now?”

 _What happens now?_ Tony nearly laughed. He pushed up and straightened himself on his feet, catching a quick glance out the window. The rain was gone completely now, and the fog already clearing. Thunder stilled rumbled in the distance, loud but non-threatening. It was fitting. And possibly, Tony mused, an advantage in just one short hour.

“What happens now.” Tony parroted back, eyes unfocused. Then he was brilliantly aware of just how real this all had become. He threw on an elated smile, looking around the room, eyeing each of them, then settling decidedly on Natasha.

“How good are you with needles?”  


End file.
